Broward To Get 336 Jobs

June 3, 1999|By TOM STIEGHORST Business Writer

Two insurers are expected to create 336 new jobs in Broward County when they relocate their offices to Sawgrass Corporate Center this year and a third insurer is also making plans to set up an office there, a real estate broker said Wednesday.

Allied Specialty Healthcare will transfer about 60 executives to Sunrise when it relocates its headquarters from Hackensack, N.J., in the fall. It plans to create another 136 jobs within 12 months of the move, and will consolidate an office in Miramar where about 100 people work, said Sunrise economic development director Lou Sandora.

Meanwhile, a division of the London-based insurance broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group, Plc will relocate from the Airport West area of Miami-Dade County and bring about 140 employees when it moves at the end of July.

Both firms are leasing space at the Corporate Plaza development, said Mark G. Levy, real estate manager for Opus South Corp., which developed the office space. Levy said a third insurer, United Guarantee Residential Insurance Co., a unit of American International Group, also plans to open an office in Sunrise in mid-August. Levy did not know how many jobs the AIG unit plans to create.

Levy said demand is heavy for commercial real estate in west Broward. He has several prospective tenants who want to lease all of a 90,000-square-foot office Opus is now building. "Today, a number of domestic companies outside of South Florida are looking at west Broward," Levy said.

Sandora said the Allied Specialty jobs average more than $50,000 a year in salary. They include claims processing, headquarters staff functions and management oversight. Sunrise offered no economic incentives to encourage Allied to relocate, Sandora said.

The Jardine Thompson unit is called H.G. Holdings and has been in Miami-Dade for 50 years, said Thomas Rogan, its chief executive. "We felt Sunrise's central location in South Florida offered us a further opportunity for long-term growth and expands our potential employee base over the tri-county area," Rogan said.

H.G. Holdings includes three companies, Jardine MacNeill, a managing general agency, Insurance Servicing and Adjusting Co., a claims adjuster, and MacNeill Horan Goldman, a wholesaler of excess and surplus lines.

Tom Stieghorst can be reached at tstieghorst@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5008.